May the force be with all of us

An interesting piece in today's NY Times by Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon, Snow Crash, etc.) states about Star Wars:

"Twenty-eight years later, the vast corpus of "Star Wars" movies, novels, games and merchandise still has much to say about geeks - and also about a society that loves them, hates them and depends upon them."

Now, it's no secret that I am attracted to geeks and to the geek side of non-geeks.

"To geek out on something means to immerse yourself in its details to an extent that is distinctly abnormal - and to have a good time doing it."

Stephenson makes a good analogy between the geeks of our society and the fading Jedi knights:

"Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes. The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details, as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out. "

Go hug a geek this weekend. Or, better yet, explore your geek side.